The ''musée mexicain'', later ''musée américain'' (Mexican Museum / American Museum), was a section of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

that was dedicated to

pre-Columbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era c ...

, with an initial emphasis on Mexican archaeology. It opened in 1850, and closed in 1887 when its collections were transferred to the

Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro The Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadéro, also called simply the Musée du Trocadéro) was the first Anthropology, anthropological museum in Paris, founded in 1878. It closed in 1935 when the building that hous ...

History

In the early 19th century, the archaeology of

pre-Columbian Mexico The pre-Columbian (or prehispanic) history of the territory now making up the country of Mexico is known through the work of archaeologists and epigraphers, and through the accounts of Spanish conquistadores, settlers and clergymen as well as ...

emerged gradually alongside the more longstanding and prominent disciplines of

classical archaeology Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...

egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

, and

assyriology Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , '' -logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...

. The publication in Paris of

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...

's ''Vues des cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amerique'' in 1810 had a seminal impact, and was followed by other influential works by

Carlos María de Bustamante Carlos María de Bustamante Merecilla (4 November 1774 – 29 September 1848) was a Mexican statesman, historian, journalist and a supporter of Mexican independence. His historical "work early initiated an important Mexican national tradition o ...

, ,

Edward King, Viscount Kingsborough Edward King, Viscount Kingsborough (16 November 1795 – 27 February 1837) was an Irish antiquarian who sought to prove that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were a Lost Tribe of Israel. His principal contribution was in making availab ...

, and

Henri Ternaux-Compans Henri Ternaux-Compans (born in Paris in 1807; died there in December 1864) was a French historian. Biography After finishing his studies in Paris, he entered the diplomatic service and was secretary of the embassies at Madrid and Lisbon, and char ...

. The ''musée mexicain'' was the brainchild of Louvre antiquities curator

Adrien Prévost de Longpérier Henry Adrien Prévost de Longpérier (21 September 1816, Paris – 14 January 1882) was a 19th-century French numismatist, archaeologist and curator. Biography Adrien was the son of Henry Simon Prevost Longpérier, a commander of the National ...

. His first 1850 catalogue of 657 conserved artefacts, titled ''"Notice des Monuments exposés dans la salle des Antiquités américaines (Mexique, Pérou, Chili, Haïti, Antilles) au Musée du Louvre"'' has been described as "the first America-focused uropeanmuseum monography" and "one of the first truly scientific compendiums in the field". In 1851, the section was renamed ''musée américain'' to account for the diversity of geographical origins of its collections. Its location, initially in a ground-floor room near the center of the North Wing of the

Cour Carrée The Cour Carrée (Square Court) is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The wings surrounding it were built gradually, as the walls of the medieval Louvre were progressively demolished in favour of a Renaissance palace. Cons ...

, was changed several times during its relatively brief existence. Upon its opening it became a highly popular section of the

. Following the removal of its collections from the Louvre in 1887, however, the memory of Longpérier's pioneering pre-Columbian art display gradually faded away to a point of near-oblivion.

Notes

{{France-art-display-stub Louvre Pre-Columbian art museums Art museums established in 1850 Defunct museums in Paris

History

See also

Notes